Work Text:
I'm on the other side
I watch time pass
And I see, I have to go along
With the water that will lead the way
And I feel, the rain on my head
And the drops hit me one by one
-New Moon, Different Day, The Gathering
___
Ben Solo wakes to find his uncle standing over him, lightsaber drawn.
He remembers this moment.
He remembers the absolute horror of it, the knowledge that he is not worth saving, that the voice in his head is right. Has been right all along. The knowledge that even Luke Skywalker who never even gave up on Darth Vader has given up on him.
He twists into despair and anger as he reaches for his own blade. He activates it, and the laser illuminates the shadowed figure of his uncle looming over him. Ben reaches for the force, reaches deep and feels it flow in great dark currents, waiting for him.
But …he remembers this.
Fighting back the great tide of the darkness that came easily, so easily, to his call, Ben forces himself to pause. He looks at the glowing blade in his hand. He looks back at Luke, whose eyes are slowly widening.
Suddenly the nightmare crystallizes around him, crushing him with its reality. He feels the hard bed beneath him, the warm, humid air of the jungle surrounding him. The scent of the night-blooming flowers that fill the tropical jungles of Yavin-4 is faint, but that long-forgotten detail is what startles him the most. Dreams don’t normally have scent.
Luke has deactivated his lightsaber. His face crumples as he stares at Ben in his own dawning horror.
“Ben,” he says. “Ben forgive me. Forgive me.” Luke falls to his knees at his bedside and reaches out a hand towards him, eyes beseeching.
Ben can’t move. His mind is momentarily blank. Then a shimmering double vision coalesces in front of him as a memory superimposes over this new reality. He sees the stone building collapse around him. Luke being buried in the rubble. But now, right now, Luke is looking up at him, tears rolling down his face.
This isn’t what happened.
What is happening?
His anger, usually so close to the surface, vanishes. Leaves him bereft. Confusion replaces it. He feels uncomfortable in his own skin. Like his body is a suit that doesn’t fit. He tears his eyes away from Luke’s hesitant gaze and looks at his hands. Looks at the way he clutches a saber that looks familiar but feels wrong.
Even his connection to the force feels different. He clears his mind with effort, and his senses rapidly return back to him, and he instinctively he reaches out blindly, without direction, reaches out for something that isn’t there- no, someone who isn’t there.
Rey
All at once, the memory of her fills his mind. It overwhelms him. A memory of full of light: the wonder in her eyes, his name on her lips, her lips on his.
Rey. He can’t feel her in the force. He saved her. He knew it; he had felt her return to life in his arms. Why can’t he feel her? Where is she? Where is he? This awful tableau he woke to cannot be real. He knows if he lets himself think about it, he will not be able to bear it.
“Ben? Ben?”
He whips his head around, but it is not Rey’s voice.
Ben becomes aware that he is now half crouched on the narrow bed. Luke is still kneeling at his side. Ben can see the grief on his face giving way enough for notes of concern and confusion to creep in. Luke, who had betrayed him once. A betrayal that has just replayed itself. The moment that had led to years of what he long had thought of as his righteous anger, but now knew to be only his suffering.
Is this what hell is? Is he in hell?
He can’t face this. Where is Rey? He needs to feel her, to see her. He needs to break free of this vision he has fallen into.
He leaps over Luke, and hears his startled cry, “Ben! Wait!”
Ben dashes out into the night.
___
Ben has run deep into the dark jungles of Yavin 4. The pathways are riddled with sharp turns and twisted roots, but he has let his senses guide him. Instinct can do that much.
It’s been hours since he left Luke behind. The vision has not ended. It is well into night and the trees have only become more real for each one he passes by.
Luke had called after him, followed him, but Ben finds that he does not want to see him. Does not want to look into Luke’s eyes. Even as he is becoming more aware that this is not Luke, not really. It must only be a shade, something he reached to across the force, like the vision of his father. But he does not want to reach for Luke. Not at this moment of his life, why this moment, not after what Luke has done.
Not after what Ben has done since.
His shield of anger that he has cultivated for so long is still newly dissolved. It has not been long since he threw his lightsaber into that cold ocean on Kef Bir. Since he finally let go of the dark side. The relief of finding the light waiting for him had been immeasurable. The peace that he had not known that he needed for so long had washed over him, washed through him. It had been the peace of flying. He had felt he peace of an empty mind, found when allowing the force to guide his hands into instinctual course-adjustments while soaring over unfamiliar terrain. The life lived in the here and now.
The immediate revelation that that dark had not so much as consumed him as he had been desperately clinging to it - that it was a tenuous grasp sustained by his anger and fed by his despair, that, that had almost been too much. The idea that he had been so close to the light all those years, if only he had let go of his anger, even a little. But he had not had long to dwell on that fact. He had pressing matters then. Has pressing matters now.
In his anger’s absence other emotions boil over now, familiar. Fear (his old friend), hurt, loneliness, they consume him. He can’t outrun them. Not after seeing Luke, lightsaber drawn. He bends over, hands on his knees, gasping for breath.
He still can’t feel Rey. His connection to her feels like a phantom limb. He knows it was real, that she was real. But he has been running a long time now, and the longer he goes without feeling Rey’s presence, the more a creeping dread begins to take hold.
At last, he knows he cannot run any longer. He sits heavily against a towering tree. In the darkness, he does not know the species, or what potential deadly inhabitants it may have, and does not care. He pulls his knees up and wraps his arms around them. Tries to count his breaths, clear his mind.
Ben breathes deeply for several minutes. Calms himself. Helped by his exhaustion, he tries to let go of his feelings, a ritual that has always been difficult for him.
He…died, didn’t he?
This thought comes to him, finally. His injuries in the throne room were great. And he gave everything he had to revive Rey.
The last place he was before he was here was Exegol. He was holding Rey and everything was falling apart around them. But that had not mattered. They had won. And she was alive.
But Ben is not certain that he is anymore. Perhaps he can rest easy at least knowing that Rey survived.
This is a test, then. Not a vision, but a manifestation of the force. A trial he must pass before he can continue to…. wherever. Surely this is not the end for him. The thought that he may re-live this memory for eternity crosses his mind, and he tries in vain to control his horror. It slips out of his grasp and he gasps for breath again.
Can he even pass this test? Does he even deserve it?
Ben closes his eyes and tries not to think.
___
He opens his eyes to the distant hum of a speeder bike, getting less distant by the moment.
He has slept but not much. The night had already been on its way to morning when he had closed his eyes. By the light now, he estimates that only four hours have passed.
Ben finds that he is calmer now, but he knows who is on that speeder bike and still does not want to face him. But he takes a deep breath. He must face his past. His pain. Ben killed his father, and oh that thought is a sharp pain, he faced his father’s forgiveness, and had felt when his had mother died for his redemption. These things he bore. He can face Luke. He must. He deserves all this pain and more.
The speeder bike roars to a halt some meters away. In the red light of the planet’s morning, Luke is illuminated through breaks in the forested canopy overhead. He slowly legs over the side of the bike, eyes on Ben.
Ben does not move. His knees are still drawn up to his chest, and it will ache to finally stretch out later, but perhaps these are the last moments before forever, but he sits up straight against the tree and waits.
Luke still hasn’t broken his gaze, but he decides to sit down as well, crossing his legs amongst the leaf litter and resting his back against the bike.
“Ben,” he begins hesitantly, “I…I know that I have made a grave mistake. It was a moment, only a moment, but in that moment, I failed you utterly. You are my nephew. I have known that you have been suffering, but with my desire to protect you came fear. Fear for your life. Fear that I could not save it. And I succumbed to that fear.” Luke breaks his gaze briefly to add, “I was arrogant enough to believe that I would never do that. That I could never do that.”
“I have failed as uncle and a Jedi,” he finishes.
Ben looks Luke in the eye but does not say anything back. Is he supposed to? Does he just have to hear this? It is hard enough. He is barely keeping his breaths even.
Is this how it could have been if he had stayed? How would hearing this have changed the way he felt? It would not have. He had been so young, so lonely, so abandoned by everyone. This wasn’t his fault. Even now, he can’t bring himself to believe that. He – “All I needed was for you to believe me. For anyone to believe in me. But you didn’t.” Ben says aloud after a beat. “You were my last hope.” Is that it? Is that the truth?
Luke’s is grief at that is clear, but he recovers to say quickly, “Ben, there is still hope! Let me help you. Whatever you need, we will face it together. You are not alone in this. I will never let you be alone in this again.”
Luke stands up and Ben watches his approach with exhaustion. He carefully empties his mind again, but not before recalling glimpses of Luke taunting him on Crait, believing Ben to be lost to the darkness forever.
When Luke kneels beside him, and puts his hand on Ben’s shoulder, Ben cannot look at him. Ben has done terrible, awful, unredeemable things in his life, but forgiving Luke for his abandonment still seems beyond him. He can almost even see how nonsensical it is.
Perhaps he will fail this test? Perhaps his fleeting grasps of peace, on Kef Bir, and on Exegol with Rey in his arms, were just that - fleeting.
“Ben. Please. I don’t ask for you for forgiveness. All I ask is for you to have hope. Let me help you and know that I will never let you feel alone again.” Luke’s voice is earnest and Ben feels the truth of his words through the force.
No forgiveness? He turns his eyes to Luke’s. The red light of morning is brightening into a soft pink and it illuminates the age lines framing the blue intensity of Luke’s eyes, beseeching him. He looks younger than Ben has imagined him in a long time. For a moment, he feels the barest sense of kinship with him. Luke was young once too. Ben says, stilted, “There was hope. It was not you, but hope saved me in the end.” He looks away again.
From the corner of his eye, he sees as Luke, surprised, tilts his head at him, “Have you repelled Snoke? You have always been strong in the force. You are younger even than I when I faced my hardest test.”
This statement strikes Ben oddly. Yes...he is young. It is a realization that has been slowly creeping up on him. Of course, Ben was young, 22, when Luke had betrayed him. And now, again, he is that young. He had felt it in the weight of his limbs, and the length of his stride as he dashed through the forest, but he had dismissed it as inconsequential just hours ago. Now he is starting to believe he has overlooked something very important.
Luke studies him again and says, “Yes, you feel different. Stronger even. Still angry…yes, but more…controlled.” The tilt of his head betrays his confusion.
“Is that so hard for you to believe?” Ben grits out.
“Ben, let me help you,” Luke repeats. “You are surrounded by the light. I can sense it. It has always been there, and it always will be. All you have to do is reach out and you will feel it.”
The conviction in Luke’s voice….
Ben closes his eyes and reaches out with his mind, farther than before, past the swirl of darkness that surrounds him.
At last, in the tenuous calm he has finally reached, he feels something familiar. Faint and very distant, but alive. Rey.
“Yes, I do feel it.” He opens his eyes, surety returning to him. “The light.”
Perhaps this is not hell at all.